


Over Drinks

by hellkitty



Series: Liberation [7]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-15
Updated: 2013-03-15
Packaged: 2017-12-05 09:30:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/721519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a little genfic something for tf-speedwriting, because obscure characters need fic, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Over Drinks

Sherma settled onto the broad bench, nodding at the server idly, taking the menu. He wasn’t here for Maccadam’s allegedly infamous infused engex, after all.Still, appearances.He looked over at the booth across the way, catching Hardline’s minute nod. He’d sent his bodyguard in a half-cycle before, just to check the place out. You never knew when Sentinel might take his head of Security job too dark. 

There had been rumors. Rumors since the attack on Nominus Prime. 

Rumors had been the stock in trade, of course, for the Senate for millennia. And normally, Sherma knew the line, however hazy, between truth and lie.But this time something eluded him, and he needed to know what as well as why. 

His life depended on it. 

Hardline made a show of lifting his glass to his mouth.You couldn’t see his mnemoneedles now, of course, but it was always a comfort knowing they were there, ready to take out any attacker, and do more than simply hurt his body. Hardline had been a find: ruthless but loyal. Loyal to the money, though he barely spent half of what Sherma paid him, and more loyal to the mech who had given him a purpose. That? No amount of shanix could by. 

Sherma shifted his gaze to the door, composing his face in those familiar lines of social pleasantries, supraorbital ridges flicking up they way they always do when you recognize someone.He did—vaguely.Momus sat in the lowest tier of the Grand Imperium, far away from Sherma’s own high, ancient seat.But distance always changed perspective.

“Have a seat,” he said, pitching warmth and friendliness in his voice. They might not be entirely insincere. It was too soon to tell, but Sherma had been a Senator long enough—long enough that he remembered before the Nomenclature Act—to be wary of too fast friendships.

Momus slipped into the booth across from him. “Maccadam’s, huh? Can you believe I’ve never been?”

Sherma smiled. “No time like the present, then.” He lifted a hand, catching the server’s attention, ordering Momus a drink. 

He caught the look on Momus’s face, parrying it with a light shrug. “You’ve never been here, my friend. That means you don’t know the best of the menu.”

“Oh.” Momus subsided. In so many ways the Senate was still too new to him, even the way he was sitting now, one leg drawn across the seat, the other knee hooked over the ankle. Like the miner he once was. In a way, Sherma thought, Momus fit in better here than he did. 

Which was what made him valuable, of course: the masses loved him, particularly the anti-functionist factions. 

The drink was placed before him, bubbling and orange and warm. “Try it,” Sherma said, lifting his own glass, in a toast. 

Momus fluttered awkwardly, because in all the holovids he’d probably ever see, there was a toast.Ridiculous ritual, but telling. “To, uh, to new friends,” he blurted. 

“New friends,” Sherma agreed. Why not?

Momus took a sip of the visco, putting it down hastily to clear his throat. “…strong.” 

“It’s a drink of the working mech,” Sherma said.“The question is, why?”

Momus looked down at the glass and up at Sherma, putting the pieces together. And realizing it was a test. Smarter than Sherma had credited. Good.He managed a shrug that looked almost natural. “To forget, honestly. To give them something to look forward to, which is just a temporary escape from their narrow lives.” 

“Do you think it’s so bad?” 

Momus looked uncomfortable, burying it in another sip of the drink—not complaining about it’s strength this time.“The newest work regulations expand the workday by a full cycle. It may not seem like much, but the Productivity Initiatives, well, they don’t seem to take into account, you know, that mechs need time to themselves. It’s not just a luxury of the rich.”

Sherma hid his own grin: so idealistic. So naïve. One never spoke one's true feelings. Especially not to another Senator.  In public.  "Indeed," he said, tilting his head in a nod that Hardline picked up on. The former mnemosurgeon stood up, pulling out a few shanix for his drink, and ambled to the door, pausing just outside the threshold, his lazy demeanor masking the intensity of the scan he was running.  
  
Sherma turned back to Momus. "I have a lovely bottle of energon wine, excellent vintage, if you'd prefer. It might be more suited to your station."  
The invitation was obvious and perhaps heavy-handed, but Sherma had learned sometimes it was good to have a reputation of being obvious. It made all the subtleties so much easier to get away with.  
  
Momus gaped for a klik, then nodded. "Yes. I'd...I think that might be good." He fumbled with the right words.  Still learning, but trying. Momus would be a valuable ally, if only he could get these rough edges worn smooth.  
  
"Excellent." Sherma stood up, palms on the table, beckoning the other to follow.  He heard the soft klik on Hardline's comm--the all-clear, a code they'd established ages ago.  Hardline would meet them at the apartment, and then, well, those hard edges would be worn away very smoothly, on the far ends of Hardline's needles.  
  
"I'm afraid I'm still a little, you know, new at all of this." Momus gave a grimace, an admission, that might have been endearing if Sherma had let himself feel it. He couldn't trust Momus. Not yet. But.  
  
"Trust me, friend," Sherma said, letting more warmth ooze into his voice. "We'll make a proper Senator of you yet."  
  
If he listened, he could hear Hardline's soft chuckle over the comm.


End file.
